Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Movie Review : Lone Survivor

A true story based on a mission by the Navy S.E.A.L.'s in Afghanistan that went south in a hurry and how only one of the group survived. Obviously from the title there is no real spoiler alert needed but I will give a slight heads up to some discrepancies at the end of this.

Mark Walberg plays Marcus Luttrell who is sent in with fellow members of his team to take out a high class target. Once they hit the ground little things already start to pop up that soon avalanche into a bigger problem. Radio signal is spotty, more enemies than previously thought, etc. Nonetheless they stake out the area waiting for their cue to attack till they are found out by 3 goat herders. They capture them and this is where real life and the film turn on their decision. Do they kill them ( including 2 kids ) and continue their mission or do they let them go due to the herders not engaging them in a hostile way. After much debate they are released and the herders promptly alert their fellow terrorists of the presence of the S.E.A.L.'s.

The group is in retreat when they are confronted in a fire fight with the terrorists. What follows is a good 20-30 minutes of a harrowing fight that includes unbelievable jumps of courage off cliffs and multiple rocket launchers and failed rescue missions.

When the dust settles Marcus is the last one standing ( barely ) of his crew. He manages to make it to a creek and is found by friendly Afghan villagers who take him in and try to hide him from the terrorists. That doesn't last long as the terrorists invade the village with guns blazing trying to kill Marcus. The villagers put up a valiant fight and hold them off enough until the US back up arrives in the form of Apache helicopters, foot soldiers and one bad ass assault plane. Marcus is rescued and lives to tell this harrowing story about strength and resolve and that not everyone in a known bad territory is an enemy and that they could mean the difference between life and death.

VERDICT: TWO THUMBS UP. One of the best war films I've seen in a long time. This movie does not slow down nor shys away from showing some very graphic scenes of wartime injuries. The air was intense on screen as well as in the actual theater I saw it in. If you decide to watch this make sure to stay after the movie to view the real life pictures and videos of the men that lost their lives those few days back in 2005. It also explains why the villagers that helped Marcus were very helpful as I did not know the existence of the "law" they lived by which pertained to them helping Marcus out. The movie can be hard to watch at times and like the rest of the people in the theater I clapped in appreciation of the these men on screen and what they did and continue to do to this day that let allow us the privilege to live our lives in freedom.

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NOT SPOILERS BUT SOME LIGHT SHED INTO HOLLYWOOD SUGARCOATING SOME PARTS :

I have not read the book as of yet that this movie is based on but a few changes were made in the movie. A minor one was that it was only 2 goat herders instead of 3. Not a big deal.

Two which is a biggie to me is that the firefight between the friendly Afghan villagers and the Taliban actually never happened. The Taliban did try to invade the village and capture/kill Marcus but no firefight ever happened. The studio obviously spruced things up a bit. Then there is the debate on how many people actually attacked the S.E.A.L.'s. The number has ranged from 15ish to over 50. Quite a gap there. Nonetheless whether it was 15 or 50 there is no dispute that they took on Taliban who were equipped with RPG's, assault rifles and larger numbers.